Happy Ending
by CinderSpire793
Summary: A/U Severus gets the happy ending he deserves.


I'm running. The wind is in my face, whipping through my hair. I feel free. The sun is bright, so warm. I feel my cheeks prickle from the bright heat. I'm laughing, I realize. I'm laughing so hard, so fully. I don't remember what made me laugh, but it doesn't matter. Deep in my soul there is joy and I am letting it out. This feeling is different, I think; it is so very unfamiliar, and yet welcome. I am free and warm and I am laughing, and that is all that matters.

And I am not alone. I look back over my shoulder, and yes! It's her. I'm free and flying and full and overflowing and warm and burning because it is _her_. Red hair streams in the wind like flames and I have never seen anything so beautiful as her smiling at me. My heart is so full it is breaking. She is mine. I have always been hers, but now she is mine.

I remember why I am laughing. It is because nothing can ever bring me down again. My life is flying free with flames in the wind from now until forever, because she has said _always._

I stop running. Why am I running away from her? She is mine and I will never leave her. I wait, watching her fly to me, watching her flames dance in the wind and I want to laugh and weep and _burst_. There is too much feeling, but no, there can never be too much of this.

She runs to me and throws herself in my arms. I catch her and we spin and spin and spin in the tall grass, and spin some more before falling down, laughing, still holding each other. We are sprawled on the soft ground, she is on top of me. I cushioned her fall; I will always be there to catch her. I will. She is so beautiful when she looks at me like this. Again, I think my heart is breaking. It is bursting, it is exploding from my chest.

"Why are you crying, Severus?" she is still smiling, laughing, but not cruelly. Never cruel. She is always kind. I reach a hand up to the shiny locks of brilliance falling down over her face, touch the flames. I do not get burned by her radiance.

"Because of you, Lily." Her name has always felt precious on his tongue. He shudders unconsciously at being so close to her. "Because you're here with me and I'm just me and I'm so…I…it _hurts_ , and I'm so happy," I stammer. I do not know what I am saying and I feel tears flowing faster now and my cheeks are burning and my heart is hammering at my chest, trying to get out. Trying to get to _her_.

She is leaning down now, so slowly, and I smell the sweet floral scent that lingers in her hair. It is soft against my face and I can't breathe now. Her eyes! I am getting lost in brilliant green with a halo of deep copper. They are so intricate, so ever changing and so very beautiful, I feel as if I could stare at the colors for an eternity and still not understand their delicately balanced perfection. I am so lost in the limitless depths of her eyes that I am surprised when her warm lips touch mine. A heady rush flows through me at the contact and I realize that my hands are already on her, touching her face, wrapping around her back. Silky locks are everywhere and all I see are freckles. Freckles and flames and green mixed with copper. Her lips are so velvety soft; I am instantly shamed by my own dry, cracked lips. My greasy hair, hooked nose, my tattered robes…

My heart races faster and faster, my breathing hitches and I look away from perfection and shut my eyes at my shame. She is so kind but I have only bitterness to share. She is so warm, and I belong only in dungeons. She is too good for me, of course. I have known since I was very small and I am reminded in subtle ways and not so subtle ways every day. I clench my teeth at the pain of this truth and choke back still more tears.

"Where did you go, Severus?" I feel her fingers on my cheek, turning me back to her. I cannot open my eyes yet, I will not. It is too painful, because this is all a dream, and my heart will shatter a million times and I will never recover. I will never live again, after being so close to the sun.

Lily presses her lips to mine again and the tears just stream, they will not stop. She pulls away slowly, looking at me. Staring. I try to get away from those eyes once more, to hide my ugliness, but she will not allow it. Her kindness is commanding, in its own way. It commands me to listen now. She is staring into my dark eyes, eyes the color of a forest at the edge of night. Yes, I am filled with darkness. But she is staring into my darkness, facing it with more courage than even I can muster. She should never see what I have seen. She should never experience these things, have these choices to make, not ever. She cannot know the choices I have made amidst the darkness, in my hour of deepest night. My wrist itches with it, with dissatisfaction and shame and painful regret. She knows what I have done.

And then she says it. She knows my worst, and she is pouring sweetness and light and warmth and kindness into my darkest corners. Those three words have already changed me, kick-started the dead, useless, unfeeling heart within my chest. She has brought me out into the hot summer sun and I am _burning_.

My ears are ringing so loudly now, I cannot hear. I am awash in sensations and emotions, awash in her fire. I think I have not heard anything, that this is what I so desperately want that I imagined it. She is looking at me expectantly. Like she is waiting for me to reply to those imagined words. "Always," it is out of my mouth before I know I've said anything.

Cold. Suddenly I am so cold, and yet I am burning up. I am burning with the light of her sun, my tears have soaked through my hair. I am so cold. I move my hand to cup her face, to touch her warmth but I cannot and I realize I am cold to the bone. I am damp all over, and cold and tired. So tired! Why can I not reach up and touch her face? Pain. I am cold and wet and in pain and cannot really move. What has happened? What has changed in the last few seconds? I long for the light, the burning passion of her presence. I open my eyes, slowly, painfully.

Her eyes meet mine, brilliance and love and intelligence and loyalty in shades of green and copper. Brilliance behind glass, framed with sun-kissed skin and dark locks. I cannot move my hand to cup her face because his hands are placed over mine. I try to move, but I am stiff and sore all over and weak, and when I tilt my head to face him pain slices through my neck, sears my consciousness.

I am not in a grassy field, sharing a warm day with her fierce, burning kindness. The weight of emptiness is suffocating. I am dying, because she is not here, because she did not say those precious words, because she is not sharing the warmth of her life. I am cold and in pain and alone and _dying_. My heart shatters a million times, it stops beating, it turns back to cold, dead stone. A groan wells up from the deepest darkness of my despair, bubbling up like hot tar and breaking the surface in my throat. The world swirls into black, starry pain and I clench my teeth against the tide of agony. My throat…and then I remember.

I killed her, long ago. Killed myself that day, too. I have been walking death, that is all I am without her. The promise, for her memory, for Albus…the boy. It is crashing down on me. What a wonderful heaven, I was there, it was mine, but I have been saved. I am walking dead again. The snake- I should have been done. The end to my pain has been snatched away again. I should have died long ago, so many times. I lived for her, I fought to live to protect her boy, but it is done now, my job is done, and so should be my pain.

I feel tears falling again. He is here, he is seeing my despair, he is seeing my pathetic agony. I try to turn away from him once more, expecting the pain this time. It is easy to bear now. I have always known pain and this is nothing. I swallow hard against the bandages on my neck, against the swelling. I refuse to engage in this world. I will not live a farce of a life anymore. I will find escape, as soon as I am able. For now, I close my eyes and try to return to the meadow, return to her warm arms, her lips on mine. Tears fall faster now; I am weeping over memories I do not have.

I feel a hand on the rough, scarred skin of my chin, he is trying to turn my head to face him. He is not strong enough to cause me pain, though; he does not force me to look at him. He has seen my pain, but he does not know how little of it is physical. I do not want to look at him, I do not want to be faced with this reality anymore. I try to refuse. He is patiently insistent and I give in, I am too tired to fight his stubbornness.

"Always," he whispers so quietly that I think I imagined it, but now he is leaning down, coming towards me. I am horrified at his closeness. I flick my tongue across my dry lips in involuntary hunger. He is so close now, and my body desires this contact. I do not understand, but those eyes are boring through the forest-darkness in my eyes, and I feel warmth and kindness and burning passion and…relief? I do not know if this relief is his or mine, but I allow it to wash over me in waves of forgiveness as his lips touch mine and memories that are not my own flash through my head.

I see myself, my skin glowing golden like parchment in warm afternoon sun, I see light dancing off shiny black hair hanging in graceful drapes that frame my face. My sneer is an invitation, my anger a challenge. I am seeing myself through his eyes, flashing so quickly through the years that I cannot identify anything except myself and the emotions, the desires that he is sharing with me now. The images finally stop flying by and settle on a single memory. I am slumped against a wall, bleeding, so pale, so much blood. My death is palpable. His grief is palpable, too, and I cannot make sense of that. I see myself use my wand one last time, I pull pearly memories from my mind, I surrender them to the boy. I watch as that barely breathing corpse stares into my eyes- _his_ eyes, the eyes I am inhabiting- this is so confusing, I do not know what is his and what is mine- and I barely register the word, "always."

I think that this is the word that I have uttered in the shared memory, but then I realize that the kiss has broken and I feel his breath in my ear. He is whispering something to me, and I strain to focus my swirling mind, to quiet my thundering heartbeat enough to hear the words that are a gift to my brokenness.

"…time that I saw you, from the first time that you pinned me down with those infinite eyes, since the first time I saw my name on your lips, it has always been you."

I cannot make sense of the words, but I am drowning in the emotions rolling off him in waves, I- no. I am not drowning; this is not suffocation. This is not the agonizing, torturous almost-death that I have lived for so many years, this is different. Burning, painful, overwhelming like torture, but this is not death. This is like my heaven-dream. This is Lily, this is how she reached into my chest and warmed my cold, barely beating heart. This is my heart shattering in a million pieces, breaking again and again and again with the same power, the same fierce intelligence, burning kindness, unwavering loyalty. I look into Lily's eyes, and I realize. I realize it has always been brilliant green and deep copper, that it has always been those searing eyes, the infinite depths of love and compassion. That Lily has always been my past, has always been my wish, my vain daydream, and my nightmare-truth. She was a whispered word in the wind, my whisper to death, but he is the strength that has given me this life. He has always been the strength that has given me life, his eyes carried me on, gave me the will to fight, to struggle to protect him. It was always him.

This is my tribute to Rickman's Severus. His brilliantly portrayed character deserved a Happy Ending.


End file.
